DVDActive uses cookies to remember your actions, such as your answer in the poll. Cookies are
also used by third-parties for statistics, social media and advertising. By using this website, it is
assumed that you agree to this.

Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition (US - BD RA)

Gabe reviews an old favourite as reenacted by Gumby characters...

Feature

A group of elite army commandos led by Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaeffer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is assigned a top secret rescue mission. Following the commandos’ efficient decimation of the offending ‘terrorist’ camp, it’s clear that CIA Special Agent George Dillon (Carl Weathers) isn’t telling them the whole truth. Soon it’s also clear that someone or something is hunting them, and doing a terrifyingly efficient job.

John McTiernan’s Predator comes very close to being the essential action film of the ‘80s. More sci-fi heavy effects extravaganzas like Total Recall may overshadow it a bit viscerally, and there aren’t any Road Warrior worthy car chases, but besides McTiernan’s follow-up, Die Hard ( the essential action film of the ‘80s), I can’t think of many other films I’d hand to future generations as a definition for what movie-going earthlings once considered perfect action entertainment. The movie is a tongue wagging celebration of bulging biceps, graphic violence, and massive fireballs, and it might hold the record for the most bullets expended in a single sequence of film. Predator is also comes close to the essential Arnold Schwarzenegger flick. At the very least it sees the star at the height of his manly man charm, and ‘Get to da choppah!’ might be his most quotable line outside of ‘A’ll be back’. Generally speaking I am a big fan of the film, and won’t waste your time gushing all over it, since I’m sure you’ve all come to your own conclusions by now, and since this disc wasn’t sent to me until the Thursday after its public release date.

Video

Whoops. I guess this is what we get for complaining about too much grain. Fox is either making a point about being weary of what we wish for (or in this case demand), playing a cruel, ironic joke on the film’s fans, or they’re doing their honest best to give us what they think we want. Whatever the reason, it’s safe to say the early warnings others posted concerning this HD transfer have been more or less verified, and I’m very sorry to say what some of us hoped was videophile hyperbole is actually relatively accurate analysis. I’ve never actually seen the original Blu-ray release in motion (I was warned away, and took the advice), so the comments that follow pertain to comparisons between the previous R1 DVD releases, and stills from the original Blu-ray’s reviews, not a direct, back to back Blu-ray image comparison.

This release isn’t a complete mess, but it’s a huge misfire in the wrong direction. The opening scenes, where Dutch gets his orders, set things off on just about the wrongest foot possible, short of reframing the shots, or literally smearing grease over the print. It’s clear from the start that DNR has been over-utilized based on the lack of naturally occurring grain, but the close-ups on Arnold and Carl Weathers’ faces are mortifying. The actors look as if they’ve been recast in plastic. All their pores have been erased, their skin textures flattened, and their facial hair punched into their flesh like doll hair. Once our heroes set off into the forest the problem is depleted a bit, enough to ignore it for long swaths of film time, but always returns, especially in under-lit, medium close-up faces, where beads of sweat form like clear balls of wax. Even with all the DNR smoothing busy wide shots still exhibit quite a bit of noise, weird halos and edge-enhancement. These shots appear just as uncanny as the plastic close-ups, because all the natural grain is very obviously smudged out of existence. Seriously, there’s no grain on this damn print. Some of these shots, like the super-slow-mo shot of Dutch falling into a river, look like awkward television censor smears gone out of control. The busy tropical backgrounds dance slightly due to smudged grain, and the overall ‘cleanliness’ slightly flattens some of the compositions.

The transfer is an upgrade in terms of colour quality and overall brightness, which has been just as large an issue for some fans. This is an overall lighter and brighter presentation, which makes for slightly less mood, but a lot more detail. I’ll agree with the purists that some of the night scenes have been over-lightened, though I’m pretty fond of the more easily discernable smoke elements. Red against green contrast is the most predominantly impressive new visual element. The skinless dead bodies really bounce off the lush jungle greens, and the Predator’s laser beams targets look a lot more laser beam-like than they ever have on home video. There’s something slightly cartoonish about this new palette, which is simplified, almost painterly, but I’ll go on record as saying it generally works in the film’s favour considering the inherent comic book tone. The colours here are also more consistent than previous releases, which were a little muddy, and featured occasionally perverted blacks. Black levels in general are about the same they’ve always been, but are purer overall here.

Audio

So they borked the video, but for the most part Fox did a good job with this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The Predator-Vision sound effects are the first real sign of aural improvement. The DVD’s DTS sound mostly matches up to this point, but these more abstract elements are louder, sharper, and wider in scope, including a cool rear channel. Then comes the first big action scene, and its veritable smorgasbord of explosive elements. Besides being generally loud, and incredibly immersive in terms of directional effects and stereo/surround support, each weapon is surprisingly easy to discern among the general chaos. The later forest flattening scene manages even more LFE impact and noise, but isn’t as impressive in terms of surround and directional elements. The more subtle jungle ambiance is less bombastic, but no less satisfying overall, including well placed birds, and the Predator moving through the underbrush and trees. The centred dialogue track is clear, but a little too soft at times, inconsistent in terms of volume, and it features some slight crackle. Jesse Ventura’s voice in particular plays minor havoc with the high end, and there’s a discussion around the forty-three minute mark (just after Hawkins has been killed) that runs a wide gamut of volume levels, even while coming out of the same actor’s mouth. Alan Silvestri’s inspired, and much mimicked score (which I think is just as indelible as Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien score) sounds fantastic, especially all that uncompressed brass, and stereo effect percussion.

Extras

For the most part the extras on this ‘Ultimate Hunter Edition’ match the extras found on the old two-disc DVD release, which isn’t a problem, but a little disappointing. The only new extras are ads for Predators, starting with a general sneak peek (01:40, HD), an elongated trailer with behind the scenes footage and interview footage with producer Robert Rodriguez. This is followed by ‘Predator: Evolution of a Species: Hunters of Extreme Perfection’ (11:20, HD), which starts as a discussion with the original film’s producer concerning the film’s production and reception, but quickly turns into a pair of ‘interviews’ with Rodriguez and Predators director Nimrod Axelrod, who throw love at the original film. Ironically some of the footage from the original film has had grain artificially added to it to emulate the look of Rodriguez’s Grindhouse work.

From here things get familiar, starting with John McTiernan’s solo audio commentary, and a text commentary from journalist/film historian Eric Lichtenfeld. McTiernan is his usual droning, awkwardly pausing, but generally informative self. This track requires a lot of patience, features a whole lot of blank space, and in general isn’t as informative as most of McTiernan’s other tracks, as he hadn’t revisited the film in quite some time at the time, and his memory was a bit rusty. The text commentary comes from a series of interviews with the sound effects editors, second unit and stunt directors, casting director, special effects coordinator, editors, FX supervisor, cinematographer, and screenwriters. These subtitles work because they don’t come from interviews with McTiernan, and are thusly from a different series of points of view. There is overlap between the tracks, but not too much.

‘If It Bleeds We can Kill It’ (28:40, SD) is a compact but informative making-of featurette, complete with raw behind the scenes footage, retrospective and original EPK interviews with the major members of the cast and crew (minus Arnold and Joel Silver in the retrospective mode), and clips from the film. Subject matter includes scripting, pre-production, casting, direction, training, production/filming, special effects, shutting down production when money ran out, redesigning the Predator, and release. The highlights include Shane Black putting the kibosh on rumours that he doctored the script, and footage of the original Predator costume (which is, indeed, totally crappy). ‘Inside the Predator’ follows the featurette up with seven shorter featurettes entitled ‘Classified Action’ (05:20, SD), ‘The Unseen Arnold’ (04:40, SD), ‘Old Painless’ (03:30, SD), ‘The Life Inside (Tribute to Kevin Peter Hall)’ (04:20, SD), ‘Camouflage’ (04:50, SD), ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ (02:40, SD) and ‘Character Design’ (04:40, SD). The titles pretty much describe the content.

The one ‘new’ extra that doesn’t pertain to Predators is a series of ‘Short Take’ interviews (better referred to as outtakes from the making-of featurettes), including ‘John McTiernan on Learning Film’ (03:00, SD), ‘Jesse’s Ultimate Goal’ (02:20, SD), ‘Stan Winston: Practical Joker’ (03:00, SD) and ‘Don’t Drink the Water’ (02:00, SD). These are all on the old DVD, but are hidden as Easter Eggs, so they might be new to some people. Extras are completed with ‘Special Effects’ is a series of five brief, raw effects plates and camera tests, one deleted scene, three outtakes, a ‘Predator Profile’ gallery, a photo gallery, and trailers for Predator and Predator 2.

Overall

The tall tales are true—Fox took fan outcries to heart, and they’ve DRN’d the living hell out of the new release of Predator. Overall I was personally still able to enjoy the film, but even when going out of my way to ignore the problem I was torn out of my suspension by plastic faces and fuzzy backgrounds. The sound is fine, give or take a few dialogue issues, but the only new extras not already found on the DVD special edition are basically elongated ads for Predators, which will likely have its own similar special features when it sees a Blu-ray release. In the end I don’t really have a definitive answer for readers still deciding if they want to purchase this Blu-ray or not. The old Blu-ray release features no extras, and doesn’t look much better than the DVD (it’s MPEG-2 and crammed onto a BD25), and from what I’ve seen features a whole different set of problems. Some folks won’t be bothered by all this DNR, and might even see it as an improvement. I’m afraid I don’t have Blu-ray capture abilities to better illustrate the problems, but the net is swimming with them, so take a Google search and draw your own conclusions. I apologize for the lateness of this review, and hope it helps out with the consumer choice anyway.

* Note: The above images are taken from the Blu-ray release and resized for the page. Full-resolution captures are available by clicking individual images, but due to .jpg compression they are not necessarily representative of the quality of the transfer. Thanks to Troy at Andersonvision.com for the screen-caps.

Advertisements

Comments

14th July 2010 11:32#1

Just to comment on the old Blu-ray, I would say that it's a significant improvement over the DVD in a number of areas. Detail is an obvious improvement, but the colours are also much better. While it does have a few problems with artefacts caused by the low bitrate MPEG-2, it doesn't have as many compression issues as the DVD and thery're not really all that obvious in motion. I'd take its flaws over this release any day.

14th July 2010 13:21#2

I have the UK's 2001 2 disc special edition, which had great extras, DTS sound, & of course, the usual barrage of dust & minute scratches.It was viewable & thoroughly enjoyable! & have just ordered both this & the previous Blu-ray offering.I just need to compare the two presentations. Complaints about grain is just getting a little too much! This is the way film-makers in the past wanted their films to look & when transferred to Hi-Def, it will be noticeable to all! Then, of course, when Fox does this & makes everything look "waxy", I think it is the beginning of the end! Leave it the hell alone in its' original presentation! That's just my p.o.v.! Too bad this does not bleed, so we can't kill it!!! Crush it, through out a window or burn the disc(not copy, people)!

14th July 2010 13:37#3

I recently picked up the original BD (after this travesty!) and it's actually rather good. Definitely better than I was led to believe and a marked improvement over the UK R1 SE DVD. It's sharper (but not because of EE!) and colours are strong. I'm happy with it.

I can live without the extras.

p.s - I gather Fox re-used the original BDs DTS-HD MA track for this re-release.

14th July 2010 17:08#4

i actually thought this was much better than the first BD release but im no expert. just a film fan who thinks this release is the best so far. clean, crisp, sharp images with great sound thru my yamaha 5.1 system. its personal choice me thinks. :0)

14th July 2010 17:46#5

gotta say the screencaps here all looks pretty good, the only image i find shows the problems is the shot where he's carrying the girl. it makes the movie look fine so to me it doesnt match the criticisms.

that being said, i have seen screencaps on other sites that totally show this wax effect so yeah, its definately there. but had this review been my only source regading this released i'd wonder what the big deal is. lol

i like the movie but dont love it so the 2 disc dvd edition is enough for me.

14th July 2010 18:35#7

Chris Gould wrote: You honestly don't see anything wrong with the fourth screen capture in particular? Colour me shocked. Looks like Carl missed his lips and gone and smeared a few sticks of Chapstick all over his face.

There are things I like about the video on this disc and things I don't. Somewhere in between the first release and this one there's a happy medium to be found. Maybe next time guys, maybe next time.

What scares me about this release though is the thought of this being reflective of what Fox will do with the Alien films on Blu-ray, especially Cameron's overly grainy Aliens.

14th July 2010 20:30#9

Bouncy X wrote: gotta say the screencaps here all looks pretty good, the only image i find shows the problems is the shot where he's carrying the girl.

I kind of wish Troy could've gotten me more pics like that one, because if you read the review I called the transfer out just as much for those. The shots of Arnold running away from the Predator look like a blurry smudge. I've got a copy of Waxy Arnold too, but there's only so much space on the page.

What about the blood on Carl's severed arm? Or the flat jungle background on that invisible Predator shot?

14th July 2010 20:53#10

Overall I thought the new Predator "DNR-TO-THE-MAX" Edition was pretty good... The only problem I had is that opening scene with Carl and Arnie discussing the mission... and oh how they melted... DNR or not, how this scene got passed quality control is beyond me, all discs should be recalled as this is clearly a HUGE cock-up by Fox. The rest of the movie played okay for me though.

14th July 2010 21:15#11

Maybe it's time for the studios to separately release the 'Grain-free edition' for certain movies so that all fans (both grain-haters and purists) can get what they want. It's a good marketing right?

Btw, I've seen the new 'Predators'. There're a lot things in that movie that don't make sense (guess that's what u get from a forced sequel). I wont spoil anything here coz u just have to see it to believe it. The action is decent enough, but Adrien Brody as the badass warrior? come on... he's no Matt Damon.

14th July 2010 23:22#12

alucard dracula wrote: The only problem I had is that opening scene with Carl and Arnie discussing the mission... and oh how they melted... DNR or not, how this scene got passed quality control is beyond me, all discs should be recalled as this is clearly a HUGE cock-up by Fox. Interestingly that's exactly the scene where most anger is coming from.

Some people lets not forget do prefer the excessive DNR look, as odd as it sounds. I'm no fan of a really noisy picture but now understand it's part and parcel of film detail. There was a time I'd not spot the detail loss in an excessively DNRed image but sure do now.

The new Predator BD looks a disaster IMO. If you take into account how Predator was shot, the original BD isn't half bad.

Dumb Dealer wrote: Btw, I've seen the new 'Predators'. There're a lot things in that movie that don't make sense (guess that's what u get from a forced sequel). I wont spoil anything here coz u just have to see it to believe it. The action is decent enough, but Adrien Brody as the badass warrior? come on... he's no Matt Damon. Danny Glover anyone? It opened in the UK on the 8th of July. I'm going tomorrow night.

Normally I avoid most Hollywood blockbusters (more a bad, than are good IMO) but I adore Predator and am pleased they've set Predators in the jungle again. I also understand it plays homage to Predator in places. I never much liked Predator 2 and AVP is just rubbish. I didn't bother with the sequel.

14th July 2010 23:37#13

I liked Predators, although it irks me a little when I see opportunities missed, and just feel the whole thing might have benefited from one more solid redraft, maximizing a couple of their good ideas.

I think I'm blind when it comes to Blu-Ray. I have a huge HDTV, and other than the overly smooth presentation of Arnold and Carl's faces in the beginning (which no one seems to like), I generally found this a very appealing upgrade. I was staring at HD comparison shots over at the Bits, and they're asking me to notice losses in detail as if they're obvious. I look at one shot, then the next, and then both at the same time, and I have trouble locking in on any details I'm losing in the transfer.

15th July 2010 5:46#14

Nice review as usual Gabe. I found one thing that I really was looking for. In all the outrage that this release gave rise to, I just wasn't able to understand what real damage that DNR was doing. But once you mentioned the erasure of the facial blemishes and pores, I understood what the damage was - the "wax-doll" effect.

So now the only question for me is, do I buy this release and pretend that it is Predator acted out by dolls (like the Reservoir Dolls bit), or do I pick this up for the extras and pick up the original Blu for the film. Either way, it really is a sad thing, because this is my favourite Schwarzenegger film. And back in the Eighties, you would be hard-pressed to find any adolescent male who didn't like the big guy.

The only thing I couldn't understand in the review was when you mentioned the video as "it’s a huge misfire in the wrong direction". Got be thinking as to what a huge misfire in the right direction would be!!

19th July 2010 12:02#19

old painlessMemberJoin Date: February 2008Location: United KingdomPosts: 81

If i hadnt spent the last few years going into film forums and learning about film grain,DNR and aspect ratios etc id of probably been happier with the new release but because i know they've sacrificed detail for grain scrub im totally torn between the 2 versions.Its brighter and that is a good thing as the later parts are very dark and has a bit rate of around 30mbps! i suppose you could go on and on because theres good and bad points to both.

19th July 2010 22:33#20

On my US disc I am unable to find the "PREDATORS SNEEK PEEK" and the "PREDATOR 2" trailer. Whereabouts on the disc are they. When I go into the TRAILERS section of the SPECIAL FEATURES I can only see the trailer for the original PREDATOR not any of the sequels?!???

Quick Reply

Message

Enter the message here then press submit. The username, password and message are required. Please make the message constructive, you are fully responsible for the legality of anything you contribute. Terms & conditions apply.